Are you living, or are you performing?

Another one of those essays about being perceived.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am standing in front of the mirror. I take one. Then another. Then ten more. I swipe. Delete. Hate. Horrible lighting. The quality of this camera. Why does it keep doing this. Why do I look so big. It’s that pill isn’t it. Why am I even bothering. Who is this even for. This is so embarrassing. Wait. Maybe this one. Edit. Then edit some more. What do you think of this? Looks great. No it doesn’t. You’re just saying that because. Whatever. Post. Obsessively look at it like you’re not yourself. This is so embarrassing. Regret. Delete. Edit again. Then edit some more. This isn’t going anywhere is it. Whatever. Post. Obsessively look at it like you’re not yourself. Wondering what they’ll think. This is so embarrassing. A like. Then another. Then ten more. Whatever.

the trigger for this post, although it lost its way I fear. via pinterest

We all perform. For ourselves. For others. For an illusion. A false sense of worth. A meaningless form of recognition. An empty sense of validation. A temporary relief for an inexplicable void. Is the reason even important. Does it even matter why we do it. The it whatever you want to call it. The act. The dance. A one-woman show. And for what. For ourselves. For others. For so long that sometimes we lose sight of.

Who are you when no one’s watching. When the lights go off, the stage goes dark, the audience leaves, and the silence remains. When there’s no one left to please. To impress. To convince. No one left to make you feel like validation is the ultimate form of whatever it is you’re searching for. That acceptance is the only indicator of whatever it is you’re searching for. Who are you then. Would your choices be the same if you weren't so worried about being perceived. If there was nothing left to prove. If having an aesthetic (but not just any aesthetic, because it needs to be the right kind of aesthetic), curating yourself to fit a certain identity (but not just any identity, because it needs to be the right kind of identity), and doing everything not to be cringe (or at least not to be the wrong kind of cringe) weren’t part of some mental checklist you need to finish to get whatever it is that you’re searching for. Who would you be then.

To be a woman is to perform. Women are constantly conditioned to curate their identities, emotions, and even struggles into something palatable for others. Women’s thoughts and struggles are only valid if they’re performed well.

You Are Not a Thought Daughter: On Intellectualism, Consumerism, and the Flattening of Identity

I write down this thought that someone else had on my notebook, in hopes that it sticks more effectively than a screenshot that will inevitably get lost in a camera roll full of photos taken in hopes of being perceived. “You obsess over your identity in relation to others while your soul rots inside of you.” Didn’t have to hurt me like that, did you. I read it again now, and it feels like a more profound version of Jemima Kirke’s “I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much.” It stings when someone who has no idea you exist can be so right about you, doesn’t it. When you feel yourself questioning every move because what if. When you sit down and you start typing but now that you’ve tasted what you’ve been so desperately searching for, it makes you afraid. It paralyzes you. A creative block, they call it. To make it more palatable. Wasn’t it supposed to feel better now. But the clock kept ticking. And the relief for the inexplicable void expired, like all things eventually do. What if you can’t live up to it. What if you lose it. And what if this, all of this, is pointless. Who is this even for. If people are mostly just thinking about themselves, and if nobody is actually thinking of you (at least not as much as you’re thinking about yourself anyway), who is this even for.

I wonder who wins the battle between authenticity and performance. I wonder if performance can even be authentic. I wonder if performing more means living less, and I think about the opposite concept too — is performing less, living more. I wonder if I’m losing my train of thought because everything feels simultaneously real and fake. Some sort of simulation where the concept of time makes no sense at all. Slow, fast, then slow again, then faster than ever. Can I make it stop, I wonder as I reach some sort of familiar yet unknown place where everything feels multiple, fragmented, severed. Where I feel myself somehow separating. Two (more) parts of something that used to be whole. Unable to coexist now. Branching out before me like Plath’s fig tree. Starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest. Meet me in Montauk. See you at the Equator. As I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

“The self is very context-driven,” I read again and again, as I try to regain control of all the things I wanted to say when I first opened this draft. Days passed. Slow, fast, then slow again, then faster than ever. Weeks turned into months. The original intention went missing. And when it finally found its way back home, it wasn’t the same. But isn’t that the whole point. To evolve, to change, to morph. To add another layer or become something entirely different. It’s been so long that sometimes I lose sight of. “Everything is a performance because you are always mediating for an audience.” And we do it everywhere. And we do it for everyone. For ourselves. For others. For the mirror who is silver and exact.

it’s the fatigue that comes from being seen. not the kind of seen that feels safe or grounding. the kind that feels like surveillance, even if no one’s looking at you that hard. it’s the fatigue of knowing you’re always being interpreted—casually, clumsily, endlessly—by people who only ever get a version of you. it’s the kind that comes from being looked at. not stared at. not admired. not even necessarily judged. just… perceived. seen, filtered, interpreted. as if simply existing in front of other people is a role you’re somehow always playing.

being perceived is exhausting

As I stand in front of that four-cornered, eye of a little god, I wonder how. How will it be seen. How will it be taken. How will it be chewed, swallowed, digested, spit out. And I wonder if they can tell. That sometimes there’s a mask. Not a lie, but somewhat of a half-truth. That most days I can’t stand the reflection, just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. That I pick it apart, bit by bit, convincing myself over and over again that it’s not cruel, only truthful. The skin underneath, bumpy, rough, saggy. The fabrics that cover it, an attempt to feel better, to be perceived as something (someone) that is not even there. The face that is aging, the neck that collects yet another line, the jaw that was thin and now I don’t know anymore, but isn’t that a privilege after all. Isn’t all of this a privilege, these reflections that feel so small in the existential scheme of it all. And before I can come back to myself, I remember all of those fragments that this four-cornered, eye of a little god doesn’t swallow (or does it). The exhaustion that comes with trying to keep up. The weariness that comes with this obsession over an image, an idea, a concept. Put together. Well read. In control. The time wasted trying to dominate something that is out of my hands. The time and hands that could be used to live, to live more. To live outside of this box that I built for myself, or that I let others build for me. To live outside the four-cornered, eye of a little god. To live outside the screen where I read that in life, everyone acts. We’re all putting on a show, aren’t we?

I think about it all the time.

And I wish I didn’t.

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Thank you for reading and sticking around <3 Here’s three quick things before you go!

One, this particular part from Letter 2: Joan Didion Against a Performative Life that just made sense to mention here,

Didion didn’t live her life as a performance.
She lived it as a practice.

Today, we scroll through curated lives. We oversaturate. We chase the algorithm. We’re told to post constantly or disappear.

Didion reminds us that it is possible to be seen without being consumed.
To create without performing.
To live without narrating.

Two, I don't want to be cool, I just want to be me from Hannah Cao, but especially this bit that makes me want to throw away my phone (ok, maybe just turn off my phone for a day or two) and go outside to touch some grass,

Being online feels relatable until it is not.

Three, Addison Rae! I’m heavy on that side of the Internet that feels like paradise when there’s no one in your ear telling you that Addison is “fake” and “inauthentic” and that her rebranding seems “forced”. I’ve been listening to “Headphones On” like it’s the only song on the planet, feeling like my 16 year old self again, back of the bus, forehead to the window, life is a movie I’m the main character energy.

This to say that everything about Addison just makes sense. It’s reality mixed with fantasy, a “calculated” yet genuine and meaningful worldbuilding, a pop star that is both ethereal and celestial but not too serious to the point where she can’t have fun because isn’t fun a big part of being a pop star in the first place. I love what Gigi Nadeau wrote on Being cringe is cool, and Addison Rae is the blueprint for it,

For the girls who grew up being told they were ‘too much,’ take a page out of Addison’s notebook today, tomorrow, and every day. Let go of the opinions of others and release yourself from the chokehold that is societies standards. Fear no one and live fruitfully. Be yourself, wholeheartedly, and do so with pride.

Post, write, scream, sing, dance, hell, do whatever it is that you feel called toward, and do it to the absolute best of your ability every single time. Be cringeworthy, laugh at yourself or with yourself, do things that would normally scare you, and release yourself from the opinions of others!